264 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



current prejudice that such "buildings must needs be 

 damp. If damp, the dampness must be due to faulty 

 construction. Nothing more is needed to secure dry- 

 ness than to " fur off" widely from the stone, and 

 to allow a free circulation of air between the interior 

 and exterior walls. In this way not only is dryness 

 secured, but a degree of warmth in winter, and of 

 coolness in summer, which no wooden walls can 

 maintain. In this connection it may be worth while 

 to note the fact, that the larger part of the civilized 

 portion of the world have been living in stone houses 

 for the last few centuries, and they have weathered 

 the damps pretty courageously. 



But the objection to country houses of stone ia 

 not so much on the score of appearance or of 

 imagined dampness, as of cost. The great durability 

 is hardly taken into our American estimates. There 

 are rural householders who look forward twenty 

 years some who look forward fifty years ; but those 

 who look forward a century and build for the genera- 

 tions to come, may be counted on one's fingers. 

 What builder of our day reckons upon the wants or 

 comforts of his grand-child ? What boy counts upon 

 living in his father's house ? There are exceptions, 

 doubtless, but the rule is, dispersion sale aliena- 

 tion ; and not one man in a thousand is shaded by 

 the oaks that gave shelter to his grandsire. If I 



